Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 4/10/2020: Nanonote 1.3.0, Magisk 21.0, GNU Operating System at Age 37



  • Leftovers

    • Vice Media Names First Global CMO: Marketing Veteran Nadja Bellan-White (EXCLUSIVE)

      Bellan-White, previously based in the U.K., will work from Vice’s Brooklyn headquarters and will report to CEO Nancy Dubuc. She starts at the end of October.

      With Bellan-White’s appointment, current Vice Media CMO Guy Slattery is leaving the company after nearly five years.



    • Hardware

      • A thought about the lifetimes of hard disks and solid state disks

        Some grumpy sysadmins will also consider it a feature that if you put a system in a closet and leave it there for five or ten years, it will probably die instead of hanging around as an ancient zombie full of outdated things. The downside of this is for 'industrial' computers that are embedded into larger systems (including in things like hospital machinery, which are infamous for still running their embedded computers with long-obsolete operating systems). Perhaps the hardware vendors will just vastly over-provision the SSDs and then hope for the best.

      • DT71 smart tweezers review – 3-in-1 tweezers, multimeter, and signal generator

        Earlier this year, I discovered a new (to me) category of devices that look useful for electronics projects with smart tweezers Colibri ST-5S that integrate an LCR meter and can help quickly identify SMD components. I also noted some cheaper, but bulky models selling on Aliexpress for $15 and up.

    • Health/Nutrition

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Security

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • Malicious Tor relays - post-analysis after two months

              As far as I can see, nothing will change/be implemented in the near future at the Torproject or Tor directory authority level.

            • Facebook Slams Netflix’s ‘The Social Dilemma’ as ‘Distorted’ and Sensationalist

              The social-media giant released a seven-point rebuttal Friday to the Netflix film, from director Jeff Orlowski, which debuted Sept. 9.

            • Former Chinese Diplomat Worked on TikTok Content Policy, FT Says

              A former Chinese government official decided what content should be allowed on TikTok, the Financial Times reported, citing two people close to the short-video app company.

            • A shameful security flaw could have let anyone access your Grindr account

              You would think a dating app that knows your sexuality and HIV status would take thorough precautions to keep that info protected, but Grindr has disappointed the world once again — this time, with a gobsmackingly egregious security vulnerability that could have let literally anyone who could guess your email address into your user account.

            • When you are a lawyer, what is confidential about a confidential settlement? [Ed: Lawyers talking about things being "confidential" when they don't even bother with encryption and don't know how to use any. If they become politicians, they pass laws that BAN encryption, giving massive powers to state thugs and oligarchy.]

              In the case of LVM Law Chambers LLC v Wan Hoe Keet [2020] SGCA 29, the court was asked whether it was proper for a law firm to act against the same counterparty in which earlier proceedings against that party had been resolved by a settlement agreement subject to confidentiality.

              The facts of the case are straightforward. The appellant had previously acted on behalf of a client who claimed to be a victim of the respondent’s Ponzi scheme. In that earlier case, the appellant concluded a settlement before trial and the case was dropped. When the appellant attempted to act against the respondent again on behalf of another client who also claimed to be a victim of the scheme, the respondents sought an injunction refraining them from doing so, arguing that the appellant was privy to confidential information which could be used to the respondents’ detriment.

              The court, both on first instance and on appeal, agreed that the appellant should be restrained from disclosing the terms of the settlement agreement. However, the appellate court declined to enjoin the law firm from acting in the subsequent case.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

      • Following Falsehoods: A Reporter’s Approach on QAnon

        The normie tipping point is a joke, but it speaks to one of the thorniest questions in modern journalism, specifically on this beat: When does the benefit of informing people about an emerging piece of misinformation outweigh the possible harms? It’s a hard balance to strike, and a judgment call every time. Give too much attention to a fringe conspiracy theory before it’s gone viral, and you might inadvertently end up amplifying it. Wait too long, and you allow it to spread to millions of people with no factual counterweight.

        With QAnon, it became clear to me earlier this year that we’d reached the normie tipping point. I was lurking in QAnon Facebook groups and watched them swell to hundreds of thousands of members. I was hearing from readers whose parents, friends and siblings had disappeared into an online QAnon bubble. The movement’s followers were committing real acts of violence and vandalism, and spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid-19.

    • Environment

      • US bans Malaysian palm oil producer over labor abuses

        Malaysian palm oil producer FGV Holdings Berhad vowed Thursday to “clear its name” after the United States banned imports of its palm oil over allegations of forced labor and other abuses.

        The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Trade issued the ban order against FGV on Wednesday, saying it found indicators of forced labor, including concerns about children, along with other abuses such as physical and sexual violence.

        The action, announced a week after The Associated Press exposed major labor abuses in Malaysia’s palm oil industry, was triggered by a petition filed last year by nonprofit organizations.

      • Energy

        • Huge Machine Captures Energy From Ocean Waves

          AW-Energy hopes to plop its WaveRoller into the ocean next year, according to Greentech Media. Joining it are other companies like Sweden’s CorPower Ocean, which hopes to have wave energy generators operating by 2024.

          It’s an encouraging sign for the future of clean energy. But the industry will still face challenges, even against other renewables like solar and wind, which continue to drop in price.

    • Finance

      • Of the Rich, By the Rich, For the Rich

        "Our current situation is hardly novel, it is just the continuation of an unjust system built on a document of objective lies. 'All men' should have been replaced by 'some rich white men' and everything would have been a lot clearer."

      • ILO: 34 million jobs lost by the COVID-19 crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean

        At least 34 million jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean have been lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization.

        Countries need to adopt immediate strategies to address the labour crisis, which, the report says, could widen existing inequalities in the region.

        “We face an unprecedented challenge, that of rebuilding the region’s labour markets, which implies facing structural failures that have worsened with the pandemic, such as low productivity, high informality, and inequality of income and opportunities of decent work,” said Vinícius Pinheiro, Director of the ILO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

        The second edition of the Labour Overview in times of COVID-19: Impacts on the labour market and income in Latin America and the Caribbean warns of “the drastic contraction of employment, hours worked and income.”

        It says that during this crisis “34 million workers lost their jobs (some temporarily)”, according to available information from nine countries that represent more than 80 per cent of the economically active population of the region. The employment rate reached 51.1 per cent in the first quarter, a reduction of 5.4 percentage points compared to the data for the same period of the previous year, which represents “a historical minimum value.”

      • California wavers on theme park opening rules amid pressure

        Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday delayed new operating rules for theme parks such as Disneyland that have been closed since the beginning of the pandemic as tourism industry officials warned the state was set to lose more than $78 billion in travel related spending this year.

      • From Trump's taxes to virus: News moves at breakneck pace

        Remember the presidential debate? The revelation about how much President Donald Trump pays in taxes? The nomination of a new U.S. Supreme Court justice?

        They all happened within the past week. Then, just as quickly, they receded into memory with the revelation Friday that Trump had tested positive for COVID-19. News, substantial news, is rushing by at the speed of light.

        Memory more than full.

        “I don't know how many writers who were working on political melodramas have just deleted their files and opened up a bottle of Scotch,” said veteran journalist Jeff Greenfield.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

      • FBI Seized Legally Privileged Materials From Julian Assange After Arrest In Ecuador Embassy

        The FBI in the United Kingdom enlisted the Ecuador government’s help in seizing legally privileged materials from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after he was arrested and expelled from their embassy in London on April 11, 2019.According to Gareth Peirce, one of Assange’s attorneys, that day she “made immediate contact with the embassy in regard to legally privileged material, an issue of huge concern.” Assange wanted the material—in addition to “confidential medical data”—”identified and released to his lawyers.”“Repeated requests by telephone, email and recorded delivery mail were entirely ignored by the embassy,” and in testimony submitted during the final day of evidence in Assange’s extradition trial, the embassy has never responded.“One record of [Assange’s] entire archive” was effectively purloined, and without it, Peirce mentioned it has made putting together a defense in his extradition case more difficult because the initial allegations relate to communications, meetings, and events from 2010 and 2011.

        Proceedings in the evidentiary portion of Assange’s extradition trial concluded on October 1, and Judge Vanessa Baraitser announced she would rule on the request from the United States government on January 4, 2021.

      • Press Freedom Is Threatened by Biden and Trump; Julian Assange Must Be Freed

        The extradition hearing of Julian Assange in the United Kingdom concluded testimony this week and now awaits a decision by Judge Vanessa Baraitser. During the past four weeks, it became increasingly clear the United States does not have a valid case and the conditions warranting extradition were not met. It is also clear that were Julian Assange to be extradited to the United States, he would be punished severely and this would dramatically change the willingness of journalists and publishers around the world to do their job of informing the public about what governments are doing.

        Julian Assange must be freed for many reasons, not the least of which is that his right to a fair trial was denied. The hearing was opened with a request from the defense team for a delay until January because they had not been able to meet with Assange to provide information to him for his input and to prepare. They stated that Assange is the expert in this situation and they relied on his guidance. Defense further stated that new information was given to them without adequate time to review it. The judge denied the request and further restricted Assange’s participation by forcing him to sit in a glass box where he was isolated from his lawyers.

        During the hearing, in what was a harsh and restrictive environment where the US prosecutors bullied and maligned defense witnesses, the defense was able to establish that no crime was committed, that the case was purely political and that if extradited, Assange’s health and safety would be at risk.

        In creating Wikileaks and publishing information, Julian Assange was engaged in “journalistic behavior,” which is protected by the First Amendment that establishes freedom of the press. Assange did what every good investigative journalist does in seeking truthful information from sources. Many media outlets routinely provide tools for people to leak information and classified information is given to reporters regularly. Investigative journalists regularly press their sources for more information. This is part of the job and necessary for respecting the right of the public to be informed.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Khashoggi’s Plan for Rights Group Realized

        Now, two years after his death at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, friends of Khashoggi have realized the journalist’s dream for a rights organization that holds Middle East governments to account and gives exiled journalists and activists a platform to speak openly about abuses.

        Khashoggi came up with the idea for Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) in June 2018, a few months before his death. At a press conference Tuesday, members of the group emphasized the need for human rights protections in the Middle East and North Africa, and laid out plans to track abuses in the region.

        The organization will initially focus on governments that are allied to the United States — Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates — and will document how governments persecute dissenters and human rights advocates, DAWN’s executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said.

      • Louisville and beyond: Calls for reform on ‘no-knock’ police raids

        The use of “no-knock” or “knock-and-announce” warrants is legal but risky. While there’s no clear data, American police carry out 40,000 to 50,000 no-knock raids each year by some estimates.

        As the Breonna Taylor case in Louisville shows, one result can be tragic deaths in a country with both expansive gun rights and expansive police authority. These incidents – a real-time real-time clash over Second and Fourth Amendment rights – often leave no clear heroes or villains. Law enforcement and legislatures nationwide are now wondering whether gun rights can safely coexist with no-knock raids.

    • Digital Restrictions (DRM)

      • How to watch the MLB playoffs without cable

        If you have an over-the-air antenna and live within reach of your local Fox TV affiliate, you can catch the action without spending another dime when game 7 of the World Series starts at 8:08 p.m. Eastern time. Don’t live within range of your local Fox affiliate’s broadcast tower? No worries, you still have plenty of options.

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Software Patents

          • UK High Court Denies DABUS Appeal

            On Monday 21 September, the UK High Court (Patents) delivered its judgment on the DABUS appeal, as previously reported here by Morgan Lewis.

      • Copyrights

        • Bond was the last straw: Regal and Cineworld will reportedly close all theaters in US and UK next week

          Variety reports that all 543 theaters in the US will be closed, which account for the chain’s 7,000+ screens in the region. The Sunday Times reports that it will close all 128 theaters in the UK and Ireland, too.

        • Megaupload Lawsuits Remain on Hold Until 2021, Or (Much) Later

          Nearly nine years after Megaupload was taken down, the lawsuits against the site and its founder Kim Dotcom are still pending. The criminal case in the US awaits the outcome of the New Zealand extradition process, and two civil cases filed by major record labels and movie companies will start even later. This week they were put on hold until April 2021, but they will likely start much later.

        • New Law Requires Google & Apple to Remove Pirate Apps or Face ISP Blocking

          Google, Apple and other Internet platforms that offer copyright-infringing movie, TV show and music apps, face the possibility of being blocked by ISPs in Russia after a new law came into effect this week. The draconian measure will only come into play if sites offering pirate apps fail to quickly comply with copyright complaints filed by local telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Biggest "AI Companies" (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) Borrowed (Additional Debt) About $100,000,000,000 in a Year
Who will be held accountable for all this?
In 2009 Microsoft Was Valued at ~150 Billion Dollars, Now They Tell Us Microsoft Lost ~1,000 Billion Dollars in Value. Does That Make Sense?
Or Microsoft lost 700 billion dollars in "value" in less than two weeks
Microsoft Stock Crashed When Alleged Vista 11 Numbers Disclosed
And last summer Microsoft indicated that it had lost 400 million Windows users
It's Not About Speed, It's About the Message (or Its Depth)
Better to write news than to just link to news if there's commentary that the news may merit
Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part IV - EPO Can Get Away With Murders, Suicide Clusters, and Systematic and Prolonged Bullying by 'Team Campinos' ("Alicante Mafia" as Insiders Call It)
Nobody in the Council or the EU/EC/EP gives a damn as long as laws are broken to fabricate 'growth'
Jeff Bezos Isn't Just Killing the Washington Post, He's Killing Thousands of News Sites/Newsrooms (in Dozens of Languages) That Rely on It for Many Decades Already
Not just slopfarms; even the Ukraine-based reporters are culled by Bezos, who's looking to please the dictators of the world
Central Staff Committee Confronted António Campinos for Giving His Cocaine-Addicted Friend Over 100,000 Euros to Do Nothing, Just Pretend to be Ill, While Cutting the Salaries of Everybody Else
"On the agenda: Amicale framework & Financial assistance for courses"
How to Win Lawsuits in 5 Simple Steps
Keep issuing threats every week and send 60 kilograms of legal papers to the target
 
Links 07/02/2026: Windows TCO Rising, Lousy Patents Invalided
Links for the day
Microsoft Leadership: Stop Taxing Us, Tax Only Poor People
Does Microsoft create jobs?
In Case You've Missed It (ICYMI), Google's Debt More Than Doubled in a Year
Wait till it "monetises" billions of GMail users with slop
PIPs and Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Still Going on, It's "Forever Layoffs" (to Skirt the WARN Act)
American workers out
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 06, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 06, 2026
Stressful Times for Team Campinos ("Alicante Mafia") at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Keep pushing
Growing Discrimination in the European Patent Office (EPO)
it's a race to the bottom, basically
Converting FOSDEM Talk on Software Patents in Europe Into Formats That Work for "FOS" and Don't Have Software Patent Traps
transcoded version of the video
Google News Drowning in (or Actively Promoting) Slopfarms Again
LLM slop is a nuisance
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: "Choosing a License for Literary Work" and "Social Media Is Not Social Networking (Anymore)"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Git and Email Patches; MNT Pocket Reform
Links for the day
Geminispace Net Growth in 2026 About a Capsule a Day
A pace like this means net gain of ~300 per year, i.e. about the same as last year
Benjamin Henrion Warned About the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Court (UPC) in FOSDEM 2026
Listen to Benjamin Henrion
Economies Crashing Not Because of Slop Improving 'Efficiency' (That's a False Excuse) and 'Expensive' (Read: Qualified) Workers Discarded in Race to the Bottom
Actual cocaine addicts are pushing out moral people
IBM's CEO Speaks of Layoffs, Resorts to Mythical (False) Excuses
This has nothing to do with slop
Links 06/02/2026: Voter Intimidation and Press Shutdowns in US, Web Traffic Warped by LLM Sludge
Links for the day
Does Linux Torvalds Regret Having Dinners With Bill 'Russian Girls' Gates?
See, the rules that govern the Linux Foundation and its big sponsors aren't the same rules that apply to all of us
IBM: Cheapening Code, Cheapening Staff, Cheapening Everything
IBM's management runs IBM like it's a local branch of McDonald's. IBM is a junk company with morbid innards.
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in One of the World's Largest Nations
Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Linux Foundation Operative Says We and Our Software All "Owe an Enormous Debt of Gratitude" to a Software Patents Reinforcer
The only true solution is to entirely get rid of all software patents
More Than 99% of "AI" Companies Aren't AI, They're Pure BS
We need to discard those stupid debates about "AI" and reject media that gets paid to participate in such overt narrative control (manipulation like The Register MS)
AI Used to Save Lives, Now "AI" is a Grifting Scheme That Burns the Planet and Will Crash the Economy
What the media calls "AI" (it gets paid to call it that) is the same stuff that could instead be dubbed "algorithms"
Living in Freedom When 'False Flag Operations' Like EFF Get Captured by Billionaires to Take Freedom Away
There are many ways to think of Software Freedom
Amutable is a Microsoft Siege Against Freedom in GNU/Linux, Just Like the People Who Brought You 'Secure Boot' Controlled by Microsoft
Do whatever is possible to avoid Amutable and its "products"
Growing Focus on Publication
Over the past ~10 days we always served more than a million Web hits per day
"Going to be a large number of Microsoft layoffs announced soon"
Everybody knows a giant wave of layoffs is coming Microsoft's way
End of the 'GPU Bubble' and NVIDIA Finally Admits It Won't Bail Out Microsoft OpenAI Anymore
circular financing (financial/accounting fraud)
Corrupt Media Won't Hold Accountable Rich People for Role in Pedophilia
Journalistic misconduct or malpractice is a real thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 05, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, February 05, 2026
EPO Management ("Alicante Mafia") Not Properly Sharing Information on Scale of Strikes by EPO Staff
disproportionate (double) deductions in salaries against people who participate in strikes, which are protected by law
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Slop/Microslop, Home Assistant, and Valid Ex Commands
Links for the day
Blackmail evidence: Debian social engineering exposed in ClueCon 2024 talk on politics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bitcoin crash: opportunity or the end game?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Changes at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
SRA is basically a waste of money
Claims That IBM Will Lay Off 20% (or 15%) of Its Workforce This Year Unless It Finds a Way to Push Them All Out by Threats, Shame, Guilt
Where are the articles about IBM layoffs?
IBM Isn't a Serious Company Anymore, It's a Ponzi Scheme Operated by a Clique and It Misuses Companies It Acquires to Prop Up or Legitimise the Scheme
IBM seems like it's nothing but a "Scheme"
Google News Drowning in Slop About "Linux" (Slopfarms Galore)
Google should know better than to link to any of these slopfarms, but today's Google is itself a pusher of slop
Links 05/02/2026: EU Commission Gutting Net Neutrality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: NixOS Books and Monochrome Emojis
Links for the day
Links 05/02/2026: Canadian Government Uses US LLMs to Override Expert Opinions, NVIDIA Troubles Due to Enablement of Mass Plagiarism ('Piracy') Misleadingly Obscured as "Hey Hi"
Links for the day
Explaining the Letter From JUDGE SYKES FRIXOU, Threatening Me Around the Time GNOME's Nat Friedman Lost His CEO Job at Microsoft GitHub and His Best Friend Got Arrested for Strangulation
this letter (with annotation) is critical
Linuxiac Not Rehabilitated, It's Still Full of LLM Slop (Part of a Trend)
The Web as a resource/source of information is perishing
"Sponsored by Azul" to Write Fake 'Article' About Azul, Quoting Azul Itself
The "journalism" industry [sic] became so utterly corrupt
JuristGate is for sale: three billion Swiss francs for a domain name
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Like Microsoft and IBM, the 'Alicante Mafia'-Governed EPO Does PIPs Nowadays (at the EPO, It's "Professional Incompetence Procedure")
So "PIPs" are definitely in the EPO and we saw letters sent to staff
Time for Change, More New Articles, Less Curation
The oligarchy wants to gut the real press and replace media with slop and social control media (or social control media with slop in it, i.e. their own voices, mechanised)
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: Coercion, Antibiotics, and LVDT Project
Links for the day
Almost 1,600 EPO Employees Went on Strike Last Week
There is another strike coming 2.5 weeks from now
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 04, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 04, 2026